Jesus Only
There lias been much discussion over the scene of our Lord’s transfiguration; but to my mind it seems probable that it occurred upon one of the southern spurs of Mount Hermon, north of Philippi. The outlook from such a point would carry the eye from Lebanon, with its diadems of glittering ice, southward to the silvery mirror of Genesareth. But it was not that vision of natural beauty that the three disciples looked at chiefly. They saw Jesus only. Two illustrious prophets, Moses and Elijah, had just made their miraculous appearance on the top of the mount. But neither of these mighty men appeared any longer to the disciples’ view; ‘’they saw no man, save Jesus only’’ These two words are large enough to suggest many a sermon; let us gather up some of their teachings to us to-day.
I. In these words we find a clew to the power of the apostolic preaching. That majestic figure on the Mount became the central figure to the eye and the heart of the ai)ostles. One Person occupied their thoughts; one Person inspired all their most effective discourses. It was no such combination of philosopher and i:)hilanthrox)ist as Renan has portrayed, or Theodore Parker preached; it was the omnipotent and ineffable Son of God. They saw in Him “God manifest in the flesh “; they saw in Him an infinite Redeemer, a divine Model of Life, a constant Intercessor, a never-failing Friend. When Peter delivered his first sermon at Pentecost, and when John described his sublime visions on the isle of Patmos, they directed all eyes to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. Paul gave utterance to the heart of the whole apostolic brotherhood when he said,” I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Has not this been the key-note to the best sermons of the best preachers ever since? Is not that the most powerful sermon which is the most luminous with Christ? Depend upon it, my friends, that the pulpit, the theological seminary, the Sabbath school, and the printed volume which God owns with the richest success, are those which present most prominently “no man, save Jesus only.”
We open our New Testament and we discover in its earliest images a wonderful child.
It is a childhood that savors not of this world; it has a celestial flavor about it. At the age of twelve the lad is astonishing the rabbis in the Temple by His questions, and His modest, sagacious answers. He opens the secret of His life when of His wondering mother He inquires, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Over the next eighteen years there hangs a thin veil through which we rather dimly discern a guileless young man toiling at the humble, honest trade of a carpenter; the only record of it is that He “increased in favor with God and man.” The greatest of our American Presidents found it to his advantage that he was cradled on the hard rocks of poverty, and was reared among the “plain people,” with whom he kept in constant touch through his whole grand career. With an infinite wisdom Jesus of Nazareth chose to be born among the poor and never aimed to rise beyond the poor. When, in after years, some of the dignitaries of church or state offered Him some attentions. He put on no airs, and made no sycophantic homage to them in return. He knew that He was higher than the highest, yet loved to stooj) as low as the lowliest. When He entered upon His public ministry and received the ordinance of baptism, it was preceded by no repentance of sin or regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Neither of them was needful to a person who ‘’had
130 Jesus ONLY.
no sin; neither was any guile found in His mouth.”
The three years of His marvelous ministry are all condensed into the one simple, matchless line —” He went about doing goody Sorrow was the appeal to which He always opened His ear; suffering was the surest passport to His kind attention; sin He infinitely abhorred, but the sinner He pitied and loved wdth an infinite compassion. His simple purpose was to create anew our poor sin-cursed race, and to lift that race up to God. As a teacher He had an unique originality: He spoke by authority, and not as the scribes or the savants. Untaught Himself in any academy or university like those of Athens, He floods the world with a knowledge as much more profound than the philosophy of Socrates or Plato, as the Atlantic is deeper than the wayside pool. His telescope reaches into eternity! Look also at His works of love, which are really no tasks to Him; at His miracles of sight-restoring, health-recovering and death-conquering, all of which came as easy to Him as the lift of His finger, and the opening of His lips! What manner of man was this, that even the winds and the sea obeyed Him? His life is power personified; it is benevolence on foot; it is holiness filling every spot He touches with the atmosphere of the celestial climes.
See, too, how, without hardening Himself against sorrow, He takes the sorrows of others into His own bosom. No little annoyances provoke Him to petty displays of passion; no stupendous agony shakes the constancy of the hand that holds the bitter cup to His own lips. As a lamb He goeth to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. He willingly consenteth to die, the “just for the unjust,” when the latent power of His right arm might have laid Pilate and his ruffian crew in stiffened silence on the pavement of their judgment hall. He is willing to die, that a dying world of sinners might live; “and when He hangs upon the cross a drooping flower of innocence,” and the earth shudders with horror at the sight of such barbarities, a heathen soldier cannot refuse the involuntary confession, “Truly this man was the Son of God?”
Did such a being as this ever tread our old sinning and sobbing world? Does historysacred or xi’ofane — record such a wonderful career? Search through all the annals of human kind, in all lands and ages, and you will find no man that answers to this description but oi^E! As the three disciples saw Him lifted o’er the Mount, His face shining as the sun and the raiment of His character white as the light, so has the world beheld Him ever since: in all the universe there has been and there is but one sacli personage; it is “Jesus only!”
I have come to preach this Jesus to you to-day. Before me are many immortal souls who have brought hither certain troubles and difficulties, certain sorrows and spiritual wants. They have come to inquire :Who will show me any good? who will help me? Here, for instance, is a person who is not quite satisfied with himself; nay, he is thoroughly dissatisfied. If I should bluntly tell him that he is a great sinner, and wicked enough to deserve an eternal condemnation, he might resent it and throw back the retort, “I am as good as you, sir.” But in his secret heart he knows that he is far from what he ought to be, and would frankly acknowledge, “I don’t pretend to be a religious man.” He admits that he is not I)repared to die; and sometimes the thought of dying in his jjresent condition sends a shiver over him. To-day he is yet in his sins, unforgiven and unconverted, with a tremendous score running up against him on God’s recordbook. “How shall I clear off that score against me, and make a new departure into a better life?” The old question, you see, “What shall I do to be saved %”
If you sincerely wish to be saved, there is a way to be saved. Repentance of your sins, however sincere, is not enough. Regret for sin in the past will not atone for it, or keep you from sin in the future. Repentance is essential, is indispensable, but it is not enough to save your soul. It would be like a man’s quitting a leaky boat at sea with no better one in sight; you may leave the swamping boat only to be swallowed up in the deep. What you need is a positive personal work wrought for you and wrought within you. There is One who can do this work, and one only. Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world! If the sins of the world, then your sins. The atonement He made for your guilt on the cross was jDerfect; He obeyed the demands of God’s broken law perfectly; He wrought out His work of redemption perfectly, and no man need perish for want of an atonement. But in-order to receive your share of the benefit of that work, you are required to go directly to Jesus Christ. Your Bible is valuable to you chiefly as a guide to Jesus Christ. Prayer is availing to you mainly as a means of approaching God in Christ. If you are thirsty, a cup — whether of coarse pottery or chased silver — is of value to you only as the utensil for bringing the water to your parched lips. The cup alone and emx)ty would be a mockery. The sincerest j)rayer for salvation is an empty cup, unless it become a channel through vv’hich shall flow your confession and your desires toward Christ, and iardoning grace shall flow back to you from Christ.
Whoever would have his sins blotted out and a new heart created in him, must go to Jesus only. And if the means which he is emj)loying — the Bible, the sermons, the prayers, or any other means — become his chief reliance, then they are a bane rather than a blessing. There is none who taketh away sin save Jesus only. There is one way, and but one v ay to be saved, and the sooner you- reach it the better.
If yon should happen to be at the Grand Central Railway station in ‘New York when the Eastern Express train is about starting, you would see a certain number of peoyle entering the cars that are labeled,” For Boston.” The doors of those cars stand open; the yassengers enter and dispose themselves for the journey. They take it for granted that the station-master directed them rightly; and they do not run around inquiring if those be the right cars, or if they are safe, and are likely to keep to the track. They have made up their minds to go to Boston, and they have faith enough in the directors of the company and in its rolling stock to take the prescribed cars and trust their lives there. “There are a million of people in New York,” you might say; “there are only a half-dozen cars provided.” Very true; but there is room enough on that train for all the people of New York who desire to start for Boston at that hour and by that route. That train carries those who come to it and no others. If you shall desire to reach Boston and yet fail to come to the station, or if you fail to procure the required ticket at the station, it is not the fault of the raihvay comx)any that you do not get to Boston.
Pray do not think that this illustration belittles our solemn theme. I simply aim to draw your mind’s eye to the glorious truth that Jesus Christ has “opened a new and living way” to escape from the “City of Destruction” (as Bunyan phrases it) to the City of God. Every vehicle that bears the inscription, ‘’ He that belie veth on the Lord Jesus Christ hath everlasting life,” is the right one for you to take. “Is it safe?” Myriads of penitent sinners have reached heaven by that road; try it! “I am ashamed to confess that I have not the means to procure a ticket.” Yes; but one is offered to you gratuitously if you will accept it on certain conditions. At infinite cost our loving Redeemer has opened this way, and has provided the conveyances. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; whosoever Cometh unto Me, shall in no wise be cast out.” You are to come to Him only, obey His directions, trust your immortal soul to His keeping, and render to Him your heart’s service and your unending gratitude.
When Jesus Christ paid the ransom of your soul He took away its guilt and condemnation. When Pie j)rovided what, without irreverence, we may call “the Gospel train” and opened wide its doors, He took away all your foolish and wicked excuses. When you break away from your favorite sins and come to Him in honest contrition and offer to do His will. He will take away your wicked heart. And every furlong that you go onward with Him, He will take away your doubts and lift off your heavy burden; and when you reach that unbridged river we call death, He will take away your fears, and land you safely on the shining shore, and of all the countless multitude you will find there, not one but will gratefully acknowledge that they were saved by “Jesus only.^”^
Perhaps one reason why you are not yet a Christian is that you have been mistaken as to what you ought to do, and just how to do it. Your experience may have been similar to that of the woman to whom a faithful minister once said:
“Have you been in the habit of attending church?”
“Yes, I have been to every church in town; but the little comfort I get soon goes away again, and leaves me as bad as before.”
“Do you read the Bible at home?”
“Sir, I am always reading the Bible; sometimes I get a little comfort, but it soon leaves me as wretched as ever.”
‘*Have you x’ayed for ieace?”
‘’Oh, sir, I am praying all the day long; sometimes I get a little peace after praying, but I soon lose it. I am a miserable woman.”
“Now, madame, when you went to church, or prayed, or read your Bible, did you rely on these means to give you comfort?”
‘’I think I did.”
“To whom did you pray %”
‘’To God, sir; to whom else should I pray?”
“Now, read this verse, ‘Come unto me and I will give you rest.’ Jesus said this. Have you gone to Jesus for rest?”
The lady looked amazed, and tears welled up into her eyes. Light burst in upon her heart, like unto the light that flooded Mount Hermon on the transflguration morn. Everything else that she had been looking at — church, Bible, mercy seat, and minister — all disappeared, and to her wondering, believing eyes there remained no man, save Jesus only. She was liberated from years of bondage on the spot. The scales fell from her eyes, and the spiritual fetters from her soul. Jesus only could do that work of deliverance; but He did not do it until she looked to Him alone.
This incident reached us during the first years of my ministry. With this “open secret” in my hand, I approached the first Roman Catholic that ever attended upon my preaching. He had turned his troubled eye for a long time to the Holy Virgin and to sainted martyrs in the calendar. He had been often to a iriest; never to a Saviour. I set before him Jesus only. He looked up and saw the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. “My Romish mother,” said he to me, “would burn up my Bible if she knew I had one in my house.” But she could not burn out the blessed Jesus from his emancipated and happy heart.
Next I took this sim^Dle revelation to a poor invalid of three-score and ten. His sight was failing, and the vision of his mind was as blurred and dim as the vision of his body. I set before him, in my poor way, Jesus only. The old man could hardly see the little grandchild who read aloud to him. But he could see Jesus with the eye of faith. The patriarch who had hardened under seventy years of sin became a little child. The skoiticism of a lifetime vanished when the Holy Spirit revealed to his searching, yearning look the divine form of a Saviour crucified.
I never forgot these lessons learned in my ministerial boyhood. From that time to this, I have found that the only sure way of bringing light and peace to anxious inquirers is to direct them away from themselves, away from ritualities and stereotyx)ed forms, away from agencies of every kind, away from everything save Jesus only, John the Baptist held the essence of the gospel on his tongue when he cried out, ‘’Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.” My anxious friend, be assured that you never will find pardon for the ]3ast, and hope for the future; you never will know how to live, or be prepared to die, until you look to Jesus only.
Here is a hint, too, for desionding Christians. You are harassed with doubts. Without are fightings, and within are fears. Why? Because you have tried to live on frames and feelings, and they ebb and flow like the seatide. You have rested on past experiences and not on a present Saviour. You have looked at yourself too much, and not to Him who was made to you righteousness and full redemption. Do you long for light, peace, strength, assurance, and joy? Then do your duty, and look to Jesus only.
When the godly-minded Oliphant was on his dying bed, they read to him that beautiful passage in the seventh chapter of Kevelation, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.-’ (It is the passage wdiich i)oor Burns could never read with a dry eye.) The old man exclaimed, “Perhaps that is so. The Bible tells me that there is no weeping in heaven; but I know I shall cry the first time I see my Saviour.” He was right. And it will be so with all of us who come off more than conquerors. The first object that will enchain our eyes on entering the gates of glory will not be the jeweled walls or the shining ranks of the seraphim. It will not be the parent who loves us, or the pastor who pointed out the way of life. But amid the ten thousand wonders of that wonderful world of light and joy, the believer’s eye, in its first enrapturing vision, will ^’see no man, save Jesus only.”